Democracy Is Coming to the U.S.A. The Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution at 10 Years Our Vision The Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution is a nonprofit organization rooted in the belief that the American Revolution is a living tradition whose greatest promise is democracy. In order to achieve that promise, Liberty Tree works to create a society in which communities and individuals have the desire, skills, and capacity to participate in the vital decisions that affect their lives. Such a society, we believe, is most likely to emerge from a genuine democratic revolution -- one that focuses on deep structural, legal, and institutional change, dismantles oppression in all its forms, and is organized through the transformation of communities, institutions and local governments into conscious agents of democratic change. The Original Liberty Tree Our Mission Liberty Tree is uniquely committed to building a democracy movement for the U.S.A.. We provide The first, famous Liberty Tree stood on the Boston Common, an American Elm with a political vital support to grassroots campaigns for democratic reform in many areas of American life, and history. The elm was a commons tree in the pre-Norman ‘English borough’ tradition: A place for bring those campaigns together to form a united movement for democracy. the people of the shire to gather on their own terms and for their own purposes. In the decade of agitation that fed into the American Revolution, Boston radicals rallied beneath the tree’s canopy, speaking against imperial authorities and calling for home rule in the colonies. Our Values After the speeches, the people marched. In one case, hundreds of marchers ended their protest at the docks, where they cheered on scores of activists as they dumped British East India Trading At Liberty Tree, our work is guided by the following values: Company tea into the harbor. In another case, the march ended in a volley fired from imperial • Feminist, democratic principles of collective and individual accountability, mutual responsibil- rifles, martyring Crispus Attucks and four others as the first casualties of the revolution. ity, active power sharing, and non-hierarchical organizing. In the first months of the Revolutionary War, British troops occupied Boston, and cut the elm to • Effective movement building grounded in the real needs and experiences of people and com- the ground. Yet the Liberty Tree lived on. In hundreds of towns, and in every colony, the revolu- munities struggling for democratic power and liberation. tionaries consecrated new Liberty Trees and Liberty Poles, and flew their likenesses on their flags. • American internationalism in the traditions of Thomas Paine, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Thomas Paine wrote of the Liberty Tree in poetry and prose, and soon the tree was an internation- and the Seattle WTO protests. al symbol. French revolutionaries hailed the tree, as did Irish and South American republicans. In Haiti, the great Toussaint L’Ouverture prophesied: • Nurturing relationships and an organizing culture that is joyful, hopeful and celebratory. By overthrowing me, you have succeeded in cutting down the tree of liberty of the blacks • The concepts of Sankofa and the Seventh Generation: Sankofa reaches back into our history in Santo Domingo, but have failed to destroy the roots that are deep and strong. The tree and carries it into the present; the commitment to the Seventh Generation means that deci- will grow again. sions we make today must be evaluated by their impact on generations to come. The original Liberty Tree served as a physical and symbolic gathering place for revolutionary, dem- ocratic movements. It is our intention that this new Liberty Tree serve in the same purpose. As an organization, the Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution provides material support for the growth of a broad based, deeply rooted, aggressive democracy movement in the United States. At Liberty Tree, we echo the sentiments of the abolitionists of the 1850s who wrote that: Revolutions must be prepared for gradually, outrages must be resisted, and outrageous laws must be resisted and refused obedience to, before a revolution can be prepared for, long before it can be matured. ~ The Racine Advocate, 1851 Table of Contents 10 Years of Research, Organizing, and Action .............. 2 Liberty Tree’s Roots - Before 2004..................................... 8 Executive Staff & Directors ...................................................9 sonnel from Iraq and Afghanistan. The campaign drew in- 10 years of research, organizing, and action ternational attention, with front page headlines in newspa- pers from Italy to Australia to California reading “Wisconsin votes for troop pullout.” Within a year, over 200 commu- nities across the country had adopted similar resolutions. The Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution go to Ohio and to send funding to Ohio to support a full and Liberty Tree founder and attorney Ben Manski provided incorporated in the summer of 2004 and went public in 2005 impartial recount of the vote. legal research and representation to the Wisconsin effort, with the luanch of its first website and quarterly journal. The One outcome of the recount mobilization was the conviction and worked with attorney David Austin to bring successful following timeline gives highlights of some of the major de- of several Ohio election officials for attempting to rig the re- legal challenges against three municipal governments that velopments and accomplishments of Liberty Tree in its work count. Another was the formal congressional objection by attempted to prevent their citizens from voting on the with- to “build a democracy movement for the U.S.A..” U.S. Senator Boxer and 31 members of the U.S. House of drawal initiatives. Representatives to the certification of Ohio’s Electoral Col- In October, the DEN reunited at its first Democratizing Ed- Our Local Democracy Program built on the antiwar ballot 2004: No Stolen Elections! lege delegation. A third outcome was a congressional in- ucation Convention, held at the University of Wisconsin at measures and on Liberty Tree’s earlier work on participatory The No Stolen Elections! campaign of 2004 brought to- vestigation led by U.S. Rep. Conyers into voting rights viola- Madison. This time over 250 student, faculty, staff, and com- budgeting to convene the first Local Democracy Conven- gether voting rights and pro-democracy activists and or- tions in Ohio and around the country. Finally, the campaign munity activists came together to plan common action for tion in September of 2006. This national gathering brought ganizations in preparing for the possibility of a repeat of succeeded in seeding local voting rights groups across the the following years. together leading proponents of local home rule, commu- United States, many of which remain active to this day. election fraud like that of Florida in 2000. Operating at the Later that year, Liberty Tree: The Journal of the Demo- nity self-determination, and participatory democracy from websites Nov3.US and NoStolenElections.org, Liberty Tree cratic Revolution published its first issue with a new look at across the country, including major speakers Rev. Ed Pink- built a coalition of scores of prominent individuals and or- 2005: The Liberty Tree Emerges the old debate of “Reform or Revolution?” Over the course ney of Benton Harbor, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jane Anne ganizations in issuing a pledge of action on July 4th, 2004: Liberty Tree launched its first website at LibertyTreeFDR. of the next several years, Liberty Tree published seven ad- Morris, Shannon Biggs, Gar Alperovitz, Joshua Lerner, City “I remember the stolen presidential election of 2000 org on January 1st, featuring news, publications, and event ditional issues of its journal, covering themes of democra- Council Presidents Brenda Konkel and Austin King, and and I am willing to take action in 2004 if the election listings and organized around various the different areas tizing elections, democratizing education, global democ- Daniel Chavez of the Transnational Institute. One direct out- is stolen again. I support efforts to protect the right (e.g. economic democracy, media democracy, local democ- racy, constitutional reform, race and democracy, economic growth of the gathering was the formation of a standing to vote leading up to and on Election Day, November racy, etc) in which pro-democracy work was happening in democracy, and local democracy. The Liberty Tree Journal Local Democracy Network, which met again several times 2nd. If that right is systematically violated, I pledge to the United States. Later on, Liberty Tree moved its primary eventually reached a distribution of 15,000 and was carried in subsequent years. Another, more indirect result was the join nationwide protests starting on November 3rd, ei- web url to LibertyTreeFoundation.org. in major bookstore chains. The Journal was discontinued formation of the Participatory Budgeting Project. ther in my community, in the states where the fraud due to a major drop in donations stemming from the global In June of 2005, Liberty Tree convened the founding meet- Work continued on other fronts as well. Liberty Tree’s De- occurred, or in Washington DC.” financial crash of 2008. ing of the Democratizing Education Network (DEN) in Ot- mocratizing Elections Program built off the base laid with By November 2nd, Election Day, nearly 27,000 people across tawa, Ontario, Canada. The Ottawa meeting brought 30 stu- Throughout 2005, Liberty Tree joined with other organiza- the No Stolen Elections! campaign and the Ohio Recount to the United States had signed the No Stolen Elections! Pledge. dents and professors from 8 campuses in the United States tions to convene conferences intended to strengthen local convene a Voting Rights Summit in Atlanta, Georgia. This On Election Night, as reports came in from around the coun- across the border to connect with with activists, union orga- and community democracy.